During delicate surgical procedures, e.g., eye operations, some type of support for the surgeon's hands is highly desirable. It is important that the hand holding the scalpel or other surgical instrument has a firm support throughout the procedure, e.g., to permit small and precise incisions to be made.
In the past, many surgical procedures involving the eye were performed from the head of the bed. The surgeon would rest his or her hands on the patient's head while performing the procedure. This provided some stability for the surgeon, but still operating conditions were far from optimal.
In more recent years, various hand rests or supports have been used. These have often involved either utilizing standard operating table equipment or making improvised adaptations of equipment intended for other types of surgical operations. In addition, most of these hand rests were still designed to allow the surgeon to operate while standing at the head of the patient's bed.
Today, surgeons performing eye surgery have found it advantageous to operate from the lateral side, usually on the right or left temporal side of the patient. The prior art equipment has generally not been ideal for the type of delicate surgery that is commonly performed on the eye from the lateral side and could result in the surgeon not making the proper incision or causing injury to the patient.